


If Ever There Was a Time

by HeyPassTheAngst



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Found Family, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy, Romance, Suggestive Themes, big dumb thing, mild era-appropriate sexism, nothing crazy, remember when preg au was a thing?, what if that but it never went away and now it's a bad multichapter fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 04:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18957457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyPassTheAngst/pseuds/HeyPassTheAngst
Summary: In the fallout of a night spent together, Wilson and Willow find themselves (and their fellow survivors) in a precarious position.





	If Ever There Was a Time

**Author's Note:**

> I had a wee story bug in my brain so this is happening now.  
> My other story is still in progress! Don't worry you'll get your family drama I promise! I'm just awful at managing my time and also write completely different stories instead of the one I'm already halfway through for some reason! 
> 
> ... Anyway enjoy

It really just was one of those nights they couldn’t seem to catch a break.

“Oh, you have _ got  _ to be kidding me.”

Wilson couldn’t see much past the hail of frogs in the darkness and the rainwater pooling at the edge of his lashes, but the resounding, thunderous honk of a mother Moose (Goose? Moose/Goose?) was unmistakable. 

“You know, I’m starting to think she hates us more than Maxwell does.” Wilson harrumphed to no one in particular. He nearly missed getting nailed in the forehead by a belligerent frog and stomped through the mud towards the nearest chest for a fresh weapon; spears were all fine and dandy for angry amphibians, but a giant on the offensive required something a bit more specialized. 

“So what’s the plan?” 

Willow had her hands full trying to keep the frogs out of camp at shovel’s length. She looked distraught enough in the rain, but she seemed particularly enraged at the moment. 

“Plan?” Wilson parroted.

“Yeah, Wilson, what’s the plan?” Willow demanded, “Or are we just gonna sit here and wait to be smashed?”

“I planned for rain and I planned for frogs and I planned for the Moose… I didn’t plan to have it all happen at once!” Wilson exclaimed, throwing his hands up in indignation. Was it technically possible? Of course, but the statistical probability of it was so mynute that it wasn’t high on their priority list to be concerned about a triple threat. 

He assumed. He wasn’t a mathematician. 

“Well start thinking, scientist!” Willow fired back, “You’re supposed to be the ‘smart guy’! Or is that just an excuse you use to do whatever you want?”

Wilson was agape at her, tentacle spike in hand, looking much like a deer caught in headlights. “Wha… Where is this coming from?”

Absorbed in their personal matters they almost didn’t realize the Moose had entered their field of view before it craned its’ head high into the air and bellowed territorially. It had the courtesy, at least, to show off its threat display before charging, wings splayed. 

“This isn’t the time!” Wilson said.

Willow dove for the nearest chest and grabbed a torch; gently used, but it would do. She lit it as high as the flames would go in the time allowed and grabbed Wilson by the arm, pulling him along with her out of camp. 

In between dodging frogs she managed to get a few words in. “We can head for the treeline, then swing around wide towards the main base and wait out the rain. If we’re lucky the frogs’ll keep it busy long enough to get away.” 

“We’re hedging our bets on the _ frogs _ to keep that thing from following us back to the others?”

“Well I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas! Isn’t that your job?”

Well, Willow seemed exceptionally irritable this evening. Wilson would like to chalk that up to her being soaking wet and cold (certainly not Willow at her best), but this seems excessive even for that. She must be upset with him. Was it the situation? Is she upset at his inadequate preparations?

Come to think of it, Willow had been acting off since that morning. Come to think of it even harder, Wilson had caught a few choice words that day that made him consider whether or not she was being passive-aggressive, though ultimately he came to the scientific conclusion that since he certainly hadn’t done anything lately to offend her sensibilities it wasn’t meant to come across in such a way and thus, she wasn’t upset with him. 

Evidently his conclusion had been incorrect.  

They reached the trees, ducking under the relative dryness of a cluster of aspens. Willow felt safe enough to turn back and seemed satisfied. “There, see? It’s distracted. Now let’s get outta here.”

Wilson watched the great bird lumber about, goring frogs that got within range and raising its huge webbed feet to stomp out any that happened to dodge the antlers. An abrupt swipe to the right flung one of their tents high into the air, sending furs and downy pillows flying. The giant was getting uncomfortably close to an important chest. Wilson’s chest, the  _ science chest.   _

“Wait, we can’t just let it trash the camp!”

“What? Of course we can, it’s just stuff! We can build more stuff!”

Wilson paled as the creature flapped and stomped it’s way closer to his things. “I can’t! I can’t let it be destroyed!” 

Willow couldn’t keep her grip on his wrist through the slick of the rain, she could only watch helplessly as Wilson plunged himself into the darkness back towards camp at full speed. “ _ Wilson!” _

There wasn’t much that happened for her in the moments that followed, save for the overwhelming dread that welled up in her stomach and crawled it’s way up her throat. 

It felt like an eternity before she snapped out of her horrified trance and charged into the dark after Wilson. 

He reached the halo of safety from their campfire before she did, and just moments before the Moose had redirected onto him. None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the damned box and the damned thing inside it.

Wilson dove for the chest, narrowly missing getting crushed. Willow came in behind, torch in hand. She gave the Moose as hard a wack as her sub-par weapon would allow, a small patch of feathers smoldering as the creature screeched in perplexity and turned its attention onto her. 

“Head back to the trees!” Wilson shouted, cradling an object (writhing and black), in his arms from his stash.

“I’m not leaving you here!” Willow shouted back.

The giant wasn’t going to give them the luxury of a proper argument. With a powerful flap of its wings and an unearthly honk it disarmed Willow and knocked her on her back, torch extinguished in the muck. 

Wilson tossed the object aside and charged. He managed a good hard slash with his spike at the Moose’s rearmost leg, so good his weapon had penetrated the creature’s hollow bones with a sickening crunch. The Moose cried out in agony and jerked the injured foot, weapon fixed into the air and Wilson along with it. He came down hard on his right shoulder and cried out. 

He came out of his brief daze just in time to see the giant peering down at him with beady, hateful eyes, jaws agape and ready to strike the final blow.  

Wilson braced himself for an impact that didn’t come. Instead the beast recoiled in anguish and half-limped, half stumbled backwards. He didn’t even notice the spear sticking out of the monsters’ sternum until after the Moose fell back with a deafening crash to the ground.

A few labored breaths and a twitch or two later, all was still again.

Willow stood over the Moose they had slain, prodding the bird from an assumed safe distance with the end of a shovel. When she was sure it was really dead, she hoisted herself onto its chest and attempted to free the spear from its ribcage without much luck. 

Wilson groaned as he rose to his feet, his right arm dangling at his side as he watched her. 

Willow must have sensed it because she paused, mid-yank, to give him a piece of her mind. “What the hell was that, Wilson?”

He didn’t quite know how to respond. Usually he had no trouble articulating himself, but in these brief moments of vulnerability all he could bring himself to say was, “I’m sorry”.

“Sorry?” Willow replied, “Sorry what? That you almost got yourself killed over some crud you were tinkering with?” 

Wilson’s breath hitched. “The atrium! I need to find it.”

Willow looked on, incredulously, as he stooped over in the mud to find his mysterious object. “I don’t believe you.”

“Willow,  _ please _ .” He begged, “This is important.”

“More important than your life?!”

“ _ Yes! _ ” Wilson exclaimed. “More important than my life,  _ much _ more important if it can do what I think it can.” He was down on his knees now, feeling supremely humiliated but he didn’t care. “Willow, you don’t understand…” 

“Then TELL me! I want to understand!” she cried. “I want so badly to understand what goes on in your head but you won’t  _ talk _ to me! You haven’t  _ been _ talking to me ever since-”

Wilson stopped and turned to face her, and she found a lump suddenly caught in her throat. His expression was flat, unfeeling. 

“Do you regret it, Wilson?”

Wilson’s face contorted into one of bewilderment. “Regret… regret what?”

The anger and sadness fell from Willow’s visage and were swiftly replaced with embarrassment. For once, she was glad it was raining. “You know what I’m talking about!! What we did!”

Wilson blinked once, twice, thrice before a realization seemed to dawn on his face. A sort of strangled noise escaped his throat before he responded. “That’s… that’s what you’re upset about??”

“If ‘that’ means: avoiding me after we…” Willow found it a personal attack on her dignity but forced the phrase out for posterity, “...made love, to spend all your time working on that experiment without so much as a “hiya Willow, remember that time we slept together? We should talk about that” then yes, that’s why I was upset with you. Earlier. Not now, obviously. …Entirely. This is still about that stupid thing you did just now!!”   


Wilson’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as he took this information in. She was mad at him because they consummated their relationship and now she feels neglected. Okay Higgsbury, scientific genius extraordinaire, let’s hear your counterpoint. 

“Hurgn-I don’t… what?” Wilson sputtered. 

Perfect.

“I mean-” Wilson amended, “I didn’t realize you wanted to talk about it.”

Willow scoffed. “How can you be that dense? I kept trying to pull you aside to talk.”

Wilson returned fire. “You’re always trying to pull me out of my work to do something.”

“Yeah, like eat and sleep!’

“Or to ask me if I can make fireworks for the dozenth time.”

“Does it matter?!” Willow yelled. “If I came in for a chat or something important? Is this thing you’re working on so crucial that you don’t even owe me a conversation anymore?”

Wilson took pause.

“Am I-” Willow couldn’t suppress a rogue sob, “am I not important to you anymore?” 

Perhaps now, if Wilson had said nothing, or walked away, Willow could have resigned herself to her fate and kept her composure. 

Instead she felt a pair of arms wrap tightly around her, pulling her snug into Wilson’s chest.

“Willow…” Wilson said, voice ever so meek and tender, hot air colliding against the cold, wet skin of her brow, “You’re the most important thing”.

Now Willow was doubly glad it was raining.

“We can’t stay here in this place.” He said, caressing her head softly, “We have nothing here. I can’t do anything for you here. I can’t give you a future here. I-” He wiped away her tears as they fell, and was content for a moment to let the words fall out of his mouth. “They gave up. They all gave up after the failed attempts, the faulty portals, the sunken boats…”

Wilson slowly released her, turning his attention to the horizon as the sun crept over the hill. “They’ve resigned themselves to this fate, but I’m never giving up.”

He shuffled through the muck and finally saw what he was looking for; a disgusting pulsating mass of blackened flesh, only somewhat soiled from the rain which was finally starting to subside. 

“This thing” he said, “could be the answer. The last piece of the puzzle; the key to our freedom! I just need time to figure it out.”

“What if it isn’t?”

Wilson took a long pause to gather his thoughts.

Willow stared at him with tired eyes. “What if this is it?”

Wilson met her gaze with a sure expression. “I have to try.” 

“And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime?”

“Yeah. Right now. What about us?” 

Wilson didn’t know exactly how to respond. He stopped himself more than once before he finally settled on an answer. “There’s only us. If I can’t bring you home it will always be only us.”   


“Is that such a bad thing?” 

“...I suppose not, on principle.”

“Then,” Willow offered, “would you love me now? In the meantime?” 

Wilson gave her a timid smile. “I already do though, don’t I?”

Willow returned the smile in kind. She brought one hand up to his cheek, the other to rest on the back of his neck. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

"Are you sure?" Wilson said, "I have more to say."

"Oh?"

"Yes. For the record" he said, leaning in close to her ear, "I don't regret a moment of it. It was wonderful." 

Willow blushed furiously before playfully pushing him away. "See, why did it take you so long to say that?"

"Gentlemen don't boast." 

"Mmhm, just promise me something, Gentleman Scientist."

Wilson nodded.

"Don't ever, ever, _ever_ do anything stupid like that again."

"Okay-"

"Ever! I'm serious Wilson." Willow emphasized every word. "If anything ever happened to you..."

Wilson hummed.

They both wondered, as they tended to each others wounds, and cherished each other in the early hours of the morning, if it was possible to ever be alone again. 


End file.
